Enigma

and the memory of the blonde hair gilding the brick made her want to be sick and he had to wind his window down and get Leveret to come round and open her door.
    'They've found the boat, sir,' said Leveret. 'Blood in the bottom.'
    Just before three o'clock, Jericho had the first message deciphered.

    TO THE OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF. URGENT. DISCOVERED TWELVE KILOMETRES WEST SMOLENSK EVIDENCE HUMAN REMAINS. BELIEVED EXTENSIVE, POSSIBLY THOUSANDS. HOW AM I TO PROCEED? LACHMAN, OBERST, FIELD POLICE.

    Jericho sat back and contemplated this marvel. Well, yes, Herr Oberst, how are you to proceed? I die to know.
    Once again he began the tedious procedure of replugging and re-rotoring the Enigma. The next signal had been sent from Smolensk three days later, on 9 February. A, N, O, K, H, B, E, F, E, H, L . . . The exquisite formality of the German armed forces unfolded before him. And then a null, and then G, E, S, T, E, R, N, U, N, D, H, E, U, T, E.
    Gestern und heute. Yesterday and today.
    And so on, letter by letter, inescapably, remorselessly—press, clunk, light, note—stopping occasionally to massage his fingers and straighten his back, the whole ghastly story made worse by the slowness with which he had to read it, his eyeballs pressed to the crime. Some of the words gave him difficulty. What was mumifizierfi Could it be 'mummified'? And Sagemehl geknebelti 'Gagged with sawdust'?

    PRELIMINARY EXCAVATION UNDERTAKEN IN FOREST NORTH DNIEPER CASTLE YESTERDAY AND TODAY. SITE APPROXIMATELY TWO HUNDRED SQUARE METRES. TOPSOIL COVERING TO DEPTH OF ONE POINT FIVE METRES PLANTED PINE SAPLINGS. FIVE LAYERS CORPSES. UPPER MUMMIFIED LOWER LIQUID. TWENTY BODIES RECOVERED. DEATH CAUSED BY SINGLE SHOT HEAD. HANDS BOUND WIRE. MOUTHS GAGGED CLOTH AND SAWDUST. MILITARY UNIFORMS, HIGH BOOTS AND MEDALS INDICATE VICTIMS POLISH OFFICERS. SEVERE FROST AND HEAVY SNOWFALL OBLIGE US SUSPEND OPERATIONS PENDING THAW. I SHALL CONTINUE MY INVESTIGATIONS. LACHMAN, OBERST, FIELD POLICE.

    Jericho took a tour around his little cell, flapping his arms and stamping his feet. It seemed to him to be peopled with ghosts, grinning at him with toothless mouths blasted into the backs of their heads. He was walking in the forest himself. The cold sliced his flesh. And when he stopped and listened he could hear the sound of trees being uprooted, of spades and pickaxes ringing on frozen earth.
    Polish officers?
    Puck?
    The third signal, after a gap of eleven days, had been sent on 20th February. Nach Eintreten 'Tauwetter Exhumierungen im Wald bei Katyn fortgesetzt. . .

    FOLLOWING THAW KATYN FOREST EXCAVATIONS RESUMED EIGHT HUNDRED YESTERDAY. FIFTY-TWO CORPSES EXAMINED. QUANTITIES OF PERSONAL LETTERS, MEDALS, POLISH CURRENCY RECOVERED. ALSO SPENT PISTOL CARTRIDGE CASES SEVEN POINT SIX FIVE MILLIMETRE STAMPED QUOTE GECO D UNQUOTE. INTERROGATION LOCAL POPULATION ESTABLISHES ONE EXECUTIONS CONDUCTED NKVD DURING SOVIET OCCUPATION MARCH AND APRIL NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY. TWO VICTIMS BELIEVED BROUGHT FROM KOZIELSK DETENTION CAMP BY RAIL TO GNIEZDOVO STATION TAKEN INTO FOREST AT NIGHT IN GROUPS ONE HUNDRED SHOTS HEARD. THREE TOTAL NUMBER VICTIMS ESTIMATED TEN THOUSAND REPEAT TEN THOUSAND. ASSISTANCE URGENTLY REQUIRED IF FURTHER EXCAVATION DESIRED.

    Jericho sat motionless for fifteen minutes, gazing at the Enigma, trying to comprehend the scale of the implications. This was a secret it was dangerous to know, he thought. This was a secret big enough to swallow a person whole. Ten thousand Poles—our gallant Allies, survivors of an army that had charged the Wehrmacht's Panzers on horseback, waving swords—ten thousand of them trussed, gagged and shot by our other, more recent, gallant Allies, the heroic Soviet Union? No wonder the Registry had been cleared.
    An idea occurred to him and he went back to the first cryptogram. For if one looked at it thus:
    HYCYKWPIOROKDZENAJEWICZJPTAKJHRUTBPYSJMOTYLPCIE
    it was meaningless, but if one rearranged it thus:
    HYCYK, W , PIORO, K . , DZENAJEWICZ, J . ,PTAK, J . , HRUT, B . , PYS, J . , MOTYL, P- then out of the chaos was conjured order. Names.
    He had enough now. He could have stopped. But he went on anyway, for he was never a man to leave a mystery partially solved, a mathematical proof only half worked-out. One had to sketch in the route to the answer, even if one had guessed at the destination long before the journey's end.
    Enigma settings for German Army key Vulture, 2 March 1943:
    III IV II INK JP DY QS HL